


an ode to summer

by Ladyboo



Series: unbroken, unhinged [1]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Character Study, Emotional Hurt No Comfort, Episode: s02e21 All Hell Breaks Loose, Hurt No Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-14
Updated: 2018-05-14
Packaged: 2019-05-07 01:44:25
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,003
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14660736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ladyboo/pseuds/Ladyboo
Summary: There was a tang of copper on his breath, not quite there and not quite gone that wasn't there a few hours prior, and he could feel the shakes coming even though they hadn’t yet set in and he couldn’t talk to Dean, not when Dean didn't seem to want to talk to him.





	an ode to summer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [qlexy](https://archiveofourown.org/users/qlexy/gifts).



> This is unedited, this was written on my phone, I didn't plan on posting this! So, have at if you bother reading, lemme know what you think?

Dean had been off since they got in the car that morning, since eighteen hours past and time like change clanging between his fingers that he couldn’t quite get a grip on. Dean had been different, not quite right and quiet in a way that Sam didn't recognize, that Sam didn't like. Because Dean never talked about his problems necessarily and Sam knew this, but he knew his brother like he knew his own skin, and he knew how Dean dealt with things. 

But their bullet count hadn't changed, and Dean barely stopped them long enough to get gas, he’d been in Sam’s sight all but for the collective ten minutes it had taken them to shit and piss throughout the day. They hadn't been separated long enough for Dean to get into anything, to start anything with anybody but Sam, except, he hadn't done that either. He hadn't done that in any capacity really, not since Dad, not since  _ before _ Dad if Sam really thought about it, since before Stanford if he put his mind to it and dredges up the feeling of calloused fingertips pressed to the backs of his thighs and the way Dean tasted when he said his name.

But that was before,  _ before _ , and Sam didn’t get nice things like that, not anymore. Not since he sat behind the wheel on that night at the hospital, not since that shop with all the mirrors and the kids too stupid with a game they shouldn't play. Not since Jess, not since Stanford, not since that Greyhound bus with seventeen dollars in his pocket and a hole in his chest, because he couldn't get nice things, not if he couldn't keep them, not if he could t treat them right. And Dean might not believe him, but Dean had always been nice, one of the better things Sam had ever known, one of the best.

Dean was summers spent at Blue Earth with pastor Jim teaching him Latin and kisses from his brother that tasted like bitter communion wine, and Sam hadn’t had a summer since he was seventeen.

He’d been in this car all day though, and his legs hurt. He was too long for this sort of thing, he’d grown too far and stretched too thin, and Dean hadn’t made a single biting remark or too true joke since three days past and Sam knew his brother. So his teeth hurt, on edge from clenching his jaw and waiting for Dean to blow, waiting for the hit that he could almost feel the touch of, waiting for the words that cut deeper still. 

But they never came and it-

He knew Dean hadn’t slept, older brother coming alive by the shift of his breathing every time Sam jittered awake even if he didn’t say anything about it. There had been dead screams on his breath and dead blood in his mouth and the echo of names and places that don’t belong to him in his throat, but Dean hadn’t said a single thing. But Dean didn’t sleep, because  _ he _ hadn’t slept and he knew the way that Dean breathed even if they hadn't been chest to chest and panting in years.

This wasn't how his brother grieved, this wasn't how he dealt with things in his warped, convoluted fashion of dealing by not. No sour, cheap beer, no women that made something dirty and mean inside Sam ache, he’d shoved Sam into the car at sunrise like they’d gotten enough sleep for that, and he hadn’t stopped even when Sam had asked about lunch. 

And it had gone dark now, it had start raining some time ago a thick sort of pour that sank a cold into his bones even though he hadn't left this car in hours, and Sam wanted to get out despite it if only so he could breathe. Because Dean had taken to acting like nothing was wrong, driving aimlessly like they did to give distance after a hunt and drumming the flat of his palms on the steering wheel to music that Sam stopped hearing two hours ago. There was a tang of copper on his breath, not quite there and not quite gone that wasn't there a few hours prior, and he could feel the shakes coming even though they hadn’t yet set in and he couldn’t talk to Dean, not when Dean didn't seem to want to talk to him. 

Except, they pulled over, on the side of the road where Sam didn't know where they were, with a floodwater diner standing lopsided and soggy in front of them and a tension in the car that only he seemed to feel. He threw himself out at the chance, desperate to put some space between them in that instant if only so he didn’t say something he shouldn't. Because  _ I love you _ wasn’t allowed, because Dean never liked it before and never said it back even then, even Before, why did Sam think anything would be any different now? He broke that, he buried that, burnt out a hollow between them that he couldn’t ever take back because he wanted out, he wanted  _ normal _ , and now he couldn’t ever go back to when Dean smiled at him like he meant it, to when Dean touched him like it was real. 

_ I love you _ wasn't something he could have just like it wasn’t not something he could say, so he stomped through the rain on a floaters sidewalk made of boards to the steps just to keep the words buried and chained where they belong. He listened to his brother shout at him about pie but he just shrugged his jacket a little higher, just held himself a little tighter and slipped through the door for the diner where a little older woman smiled at him and called him sugar with her sleepy eyes and her fat curls and asked him what she could do for him just before all hell broke loose.

 


End file.
